A young, orphaned woman from Germany named Hilla, who moved to the USA after her family was killed in the war from a firebombing, turns up on the mortician's table as an apparent suicide on her nineteenth birthday, and Sam has to find out if that is really how she died.

This was an excellent episode. I thought that because I love murder mysteries. Sam being a mortician was pretty cool! We also got to see W.K. Stratton again. That actor played the part of the recently convicted Cmdr. Teddy Lindsey on Don Bellisario's "JAG".

~Steve(aka RossBeckett)

"And that's all I'm gonna say before this really starts to sound like high school."-Catherine Bell from a very recent episode of JAG(10/17/03)

This was one of the first QL episodes I ever saw, though I only saw the last half of it. Even though I was only nine, I remembered how it ended, and I spent years wondering what episode it was. In fact, I didn't even realize it was a QL episode, because I was wondering what show it was. For some reason, the ending stayed with me.

I love this episode. It's always interesting to see a darker side to Sam; in this case, his obsession. It was eating away at him that he hadn't been put there early enough to save her, and it gave the entire episode a somber tone. It shows there are some things that just can't be put right...

hmm i saw this episode only once, and it was kinda boring to me, but i must admit the whole obsession thing got my interest too, i very much liked that and the poem he read to her tombstone at the end indicating the title of the episode. the book by Mark Twain that he he wrote for his daughter.

Great episode. Well done. I really liked the atmosphere During the episode.
The peak of the episode - the poem Sam read to Hilla's tombstone.
It was really heart-rending emotional. Really an unforgetabe episode to me. It's Probabley one of my top 10 episodes of QL.

Good episode. Loved how it all kinda played like a "Law & Order: Criminal Intent" development right until the end, even though Sam was not a detective and it was a time when that show wasn't even considered yet. Loved the sad and sort of "dark" atmosphere throughout the whole episode.

My favorite scene was the very last one: The digger asks him if he knows her, Sam says no, then tells Al that he doesn't think he did her any good. Al replies that yeah, he did her good. Sam asks "Then why am I still here?" Al replies "Well, maybe you just need to say good-bye." And then he starts reading her the Mark Twain poem. Outstanding!!!

Some things I didn't like: He always looked so yucky with those mortician clothes full of blood and dirt, but that was the point and it was understandable. The "make-up" girl was so annoying and two-dimensional. There was a mirror shot that was kinda ruined with the real Melvin image when the actor who played him didn't appear on time (not that I'm picky about these sort of things, but that one was very obvious). And never liked the fact that it looks like Sam is always feeling bad for the girl who killed Hilla, even when he discovers her. She was a bit overly-dramatic and self-centered on her idea of love. That and some suggestions about Sam falling in love with Hilla by watching her movies. Those were kind of "eeky" moments, but aside from that, an episode to remember.

I don't understand why Sam didn't just leap in before Hilla died to save her. Then again, I guess if she'd kept ignoring Stephanie eventually Stephanie would crack and kill her. Some people are just determined to kill...

Weird episode. Sam has never seemed to me to be the type to obsess over someone, especially a dead girl. I saw the shoe as the murder weapon as soon as he didn't find a bullet. In fact, I thought it was one of her scuffed shoes. Though I didn't catch until the reveal who was the murderer, and why.

Weirdness abounds, though the final scene was touching. This one gets an Average from me.

__________________

"What's left after you go is the good you've left behind."
-- Robert Zubrin, American aerospace engineer